, and our country has presented, a challenge to us for our seniors and the need for long-term care. we're going to be working closely with the long term care coordinating council. thank you, tracy. [applause] thank you for stepping up. and for teaching me how to pronounce your name. our mta newest member to the board of directors and one that i know will be of great value to us as we are challenged with everybody being able to enjoy all the services our mta has. thank you, christina, for stepping up. [applause] as we move into the times when

we want more people to come in, we want development to create jobs, we need to make sure we appropriately plan all areas of the city. i want to thank these two gentlemen for stepping up to come and spend hours of their personal time helping us with the planning of the city. michael, thank you for returning and stepping forward for the planning commission. richard, thank you very much for stepping up as well. some say the most voluble land we have -- valuable land we have for people to live and enjoy is the waterfront. i want to thank our newest commissioner to the port commission, william adams. thank you, william, for stepping

up. [applause] we have a very important task in front of us for this november. we have a very important bond i think most people in the city know will be invaluable to us for our kids and families. that is the open spaces part bond proposition b for this year. we also have a cherished commission and department that is charged with maintaining all of the open space in the city from the parklets to the vast golden gate park, to the shared responsibilities we have with ocean beach and open spaces throughout the city. i want to thank phil for being here today. we have our returning commission. you have done a wonderful job so well. in my decision, it was

appropriate to reappoint youtube this important commission, -- to reappoint you to this important commission, and keep the good work out. gloria, megan, thank you. tom harrison, thank you very much for your wonderful work there. we have challenges at our state level in the way we handle our incarcerated population. we will be working closely with the realignment committee, with all of our public safety departments, many of them are represented here today. we will be working with the sentencing commission. stephen, thank you for stepping up and helping us with our sentencing commission. [applause]

it is no surprise to you that i have been working with the board of supervisors on this very thema, and i am not afraid to keep repeating it. it is jobs, jobs, jobs for everybody. we can only do it if we have a more enlightened workforce investment board the works with us on all the policies we need to have, all the outrage, all of the communities need to be represented on our investment board. i want to thank everyone who is stepping forward today to be on the board to help us with the 21st century policies we need to make sure people have every chance and opportunity to work in jobs in the city. andrew, thank you for joining. barbara morrissette, thank you

for joining us. brenda barnes, thank you very much. diane easterwood from kaiser, thank you for stepping up and helping. kevin carroll, thank you for stepping up and being with us. niki callahan, -- mickey callahan, they keep for your help and stepping up. ontario from pg&e, thank you. rebecca miller, thank you very much for being here. [applause] rudy bagsby, thank you for stepping up and being part of this. sylvia kwan, thank you very much. ted eagan, thank you very much

for stepping up on this workforce. tiffany, thank you very much. keep us focused on central market, too. tom from riverbed technology, thank you. trent, thank you very much for all of your great work. jimena from bank of america, thank you very much for stepping up. [applause] finally, the largest body we have today, but one of the most important ones, one that today we have shared appointments with the board of supervisors is our youth commission. [applause] yes. i assure you that people from

this body, as well as all the other bodies, will one day see somebody standing in my place or in the place of the people standing by the side of meat and their respective offices. our youth are important. whether it is public safety, education, free muni, all the things we deem important to make this city healthy. you are charged with helping us with the best inclusion and policies we can have to keep families vibrant, keep our youth a safe, keep them motivated, and keep all of us paying attention to our next generation of people who will inherit everything we do and will inherit the good things as well as the bad things. with your help, there will be less bad things to inherit. with that, angel carion, thank

you for being here and stepping up. ariel, thank you for stepping forward and being part of our youth commission. brian chu, thank you for being here. christine, thank you for stepping forward. eric wu, they give for stepping forward. -- thank you for stepping forward. iris, thank you for being here. kyren, thank you for being here and being part of the effort. lily, thank you for stepping forward. mia, thank you for being part of this. mia, thank you. nicholas persky, a key for being

part of this and stepping forward. -- thank you for being part of this and stepping forward. paul rodriguez, thank you for stepping forward. rachel broadwyn, thank you. sarah armstrong, thank you for stepping forward. vanessa, thank you for being part of this. vee, thank you. that is our commissions. let us proceed with the swearing in. stand if you can and raise your right hand, those that can do

so. please repeat after me. i, your name, do solemnly swear that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california against all enemies foreign and domestic, that i will bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california, that i take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that i will well and faithfully

discharge the duties upon which i am about to enter during such time as i hold the office of -- for the city and county of san francisco. congratulations. thank you very much. [applause] thank you, all. our class of commissioners for 2012. 14 commissions. thank you very much.

>> welcome to the 2011 spj town hall. i'm here with my co-host to welcome you to what promises to be a fascinating discussion about the changes taking place in journalism today. tonight's program is presented by the society of professional journalists in collaboration with the san francisco public library and san francisco bay area journalists. after several years of difficulty, we are seeing a lot of activity, particularly involving new media organizations. we have seen patch.com open hundreds of bureaus across the country. yahoo! is expanding its staff across the country. aol bought the huffington opposed. in the middle east, we saw how citizen journalists are reporting on the uprisings, and

in papers like the "san francisco chronicle" are finding ways to collaborate with groups like spj's journalist of the year in northern california. his last three of this year's winners were new or nonprofit media, a ratio that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago when newspapers and large tv stations dominated the news media. to be sure, most of the hard work is still ahead of us. few new start-ups turn a profit. many community newsrooms' still rely on volunteer labor, and broader economic issues. we want to encourage the members of our audience here at the public library to drive this discussion. this is your chance to ask these experts what is happening to the news that you depend on to make

your day to day decisions. our conversation tonight will include five elements -- we will talk about the quality of reporting available to the public and move on to what is being done to create sustainable newsroom jobs. we will talk about creating a new system that enjoys constitutional freedom of the press, celebrates the diversity of our communities, and enjoys the economic independence needed to support ethical journalism. i would like to introduce my coast -- co-host of the evening, and she will be introducing our panelists. >> thank you, rose. it is a privilege to stand up here. we are not used to looking this good. we can go to radio in pajamas. i would like to introduce our panelists for today. we will start back from the left. executive producer of the "daily mandarin and cantonese newshour."

next to him is the director of multimedia and technology programs at the night digital media center at uc-berkeley. next is the managing is theidd -- managing director at idd ventures sf. nexus' the editor in chief of marketwatch.com, part of news corp. -- next is the editor in chief. the co-founder and senior community manager of oakland local, a nonprofit media that promotes public discourse on issues. in the front row is a media analyst, who publishes an was a key developer of the mercury center. next to him is an assistant

professor of broadcast and electronic media at san francisco state university. next is the managing editor for local news at -- i'm sorry. he is not at yahoo!, right. he is editor-in-chief of patch.com, a division of aol that provides news to specific communities. very local. after him, we have the managing director for local news at yahoo.com, guiding the company's local coverage nationwide. last but not least is the senator who represents san francisco and san mateo counties, and he is the recipient of spj's freedom of information award in 2010. that is our panel. back to you, rose. >> before we start, i want to

get a sense of who we have in the audience. how many of you currently work in the media? lots. how many of you used to work in the media? how many of you want to work in the media? ok, good. that will give us a sense of who we are talking with. great. every friday, we have a media roundtable and invite international, alternative, and mainstream journalists to talk about coverage of the week's news. we believe it is important to highlight good journalism because so much of it gets passed over. we think it is also important to start off on a positive no. with that, i want to start off on a positive note tonight. i worked with very. we were on staff before the web was even a mainstream word. i just want to ask you, since you were there in the beginning,

and you have rode the wave, what is really exciting new as we face all these challenges? >> the good news is we see an emerging business model for media, and the bad news is it involves giving 30% of your revenue to apple. but i think there is a lot of potential, actually, for building a business on top of distribution through mobile. the other thing we have got going on is really profoundly exciting and far more exciting than five years ago, that the tools are so much better than they were five years ago. they are profoundly better. compared to the dark days of 2005, media are now -- everybody is online. facebook can launch a product, and really, overnight, build community on thousands of

websites. there really are some exciting things going on. in the last five years, things have changed a lot. >> does that count -- does that excitement also extend to content? >> i do not think we are there yet. i do not think we have seen any digital native content that has produced really ground-breaking journalism. a couple of years ago, we were pretty excited about what was happening at a place like talking points memo, where they were doing some great stuff. we have seen a lot of efforts, but things like rupert murdoch's daily have not excited us on a journalistic level. but i think we are laying groundwork for some institutions that they possibly do that in the next three to five years. >> i'm wondering what you think it would take for it to go to that next level and provide quality journalism. >> i just want to offer a slight

difference of opinion. i think that we are seeing a couple of things happen right now. they are positive things that are happening. while it may be true that the first wave of online-only journalism tended to be national and international criticism and opinion, which got the name of blogs, what we are actually seeing of the local level is something even more exciting than that. as newspapers have become challenged, and we have seen, sadly, the destruction of capabilities of newspaper and local television stations and other media in the local arena, we are seeing a new layer journalism being created at the local level. some startups such as the "bases and close " in san francisco, "texas tribune" out in texas --

there have been others that attended some similar things -- are starting to use a digital- only medium to provide a layer of local coverage. after that, the other positive things that i see our outfits like -- are outfits like patch and yahoo!, which is looking to create semi-pro or citizen journalism to take place, a new layer, stuff that was not covered at all before. observational community-oriented journalism. things that might have been restricted to an e-mail newsletter or in the distant past, some kind of mimeograph letter. those are positive changes to journalism, and they are happening at the local level. >> speaking of local, how many here have heard up hatch -- heard of patch.com? interesting. i love my local pact, not

because they are here, but i follow it. it tells me what is going on in the schools, and it tells me what is going on down the street. but not many people know about it. i'm wondering why you think that is, or are you targeting certain communities that are covered by patch? >> and can you describe it for those of us that are not familiar with it? >> it is a hub for news and information for local communities, simply put. it goes beyond this, and we can get into that, but that is something it leads with. we hire full-time professional journalist who lives and works locally in that community that it is serving. so it is a uniform platform so the technology is shared, so we can flip the switch, but the editor is really the key to making that all work. for us, for each of those, although it is part of a bigger brand and effort, what matters

is how many people within that community know about it, so i'm gratified that you know about yours. the question would be how many more people know about it, and the ones who did not, how do we let them know? >> well, i am also a news person, so that helps. >> and it kind of markets itself to some degree in that the longer the editor is there covering the news, the more people they are talking to, the more people are interested in seeing photographs of the high- school football game and will look for it and that sort of thing. last year, we grew from 30 sites regionally on the east coast to 775 nationally. we were the largest hirer of journalists in the country, something we are very proud of. we're definitely making an effort at serving those communities, but doing it at scale, and that has been the big challenge. >> can you elaborate on that? what does that mean exactly? >> we would not exist if there was not a feeling that a lot of

these communities do not have the experience online of finding the information that is most relevant to them. there are a lot of great weekly newspapers. there are a lot of bulletin boards, facebook woods, you name it. there is a lot of media focused at local, but not every community has it, and even the ones that do often are not getting the kind of service that i think they used to historical because of downsizing and regional newspapers not serving those communities the way they used to. so you will have the council meeting not really being covered. we have had numerous examples where board meetings, council meetings, things that those members got used to not being covered. suddenly, they were seeing the week after week and seeing that we were there to stay. >> in the audience, do you feel like you're communities are being covered well? do you know what is going on in

your back yard? do you feel like your stories being told? majority no? ok. let's go to pat with idg because you argue that there is a lot of local news in san francisco, based on the data you have done, and a lot of people feel like they do not know what is going on. can you talk about that? >> we pulled together some numbers about what is going on, and i stopped counting after 100 local dot-com's. 14 city-wide newspapers, 13 ethnic, 16 different neighborhood papers. the high schools, the special interest things, universities, tv stations, radio stations. together, those add up to 100 units of local coverage, and that is not counting all the new stock that venture capitalists

like we fund in the jungle all the time. this is at some level deflowering of local journalism that happen because it is cheap to be in business now. you do not have to have a big printing press and truckers and unions and all those things. you can be right in the business in a way that was impossible in the last 25 years. i think there is a flowering going on of local journalism and lots of capital chasing that opportunity right now. >> would you agree with that? when you look at local news, do you think it is being covered well by the sources that were just cited? >> i think in the san francisco area that is true. that is probably not true in all areas, but we are seeing with the development of patch and many other high for local news sites that there is a rebirth of coverage of local news -- and many other hyperlocal news

sites. >> i was a foreign correspondent for a number of years. many freelances like myself have kind of jumped out of the business as it has steadily declined. my question is, on the sustainability side, as well in america over the last decades -- and it is an old story, and we have been hearing it for many years. people like paul krugman have been trying to get us to realize how well has been so concentrated in such a small group of folks. what strategies could be used to attack this minority of individuals in a way that foundations and charities did in the past? if we had a few people, and quite a number of them at an

immense amount of wealth, why are we not having them at the new macarthur foundation's and the people who will finance this community journalism? there should be a way of strategy and a mindset where they can help reduce the public interest journalism of the future -- help produce the public interest journalism of the future. >> you are seeing that from some of the wealthy. you have bill gates doing fantastic things. msn and msnbc sprang from microsoft. rupert murdoch, for all the criticism he gets, is invested in the media and innovation. mike bloomberg is doing a ton of stuff through his company. they are hiring hundreds of people. i worked at bloomberg 15 years ago, and i was in europe as a foreign correspondent. there were 40 journalists, and

now, there are thousands. i think it depends on the interests of certain people, but they are being tapped, and you can get them to lend to foundations and do this type of stuff. it is just creating the bridge from the journalism world into that world, and it is not as hard as you would think, in my experience. >> i would just say that a few of those individuals you had mentioned are not examples of the types of progress of journalism that i think a lot of people are here to talk about and listened of route -- was it about. these guys are kind of villains in a sense of where we want journalism to go. fox news and the daily, who knows where that is going to go, but they are not necessarily public-interested, public radio, public tv, public press minded people. >> that is an opinion that has >> that is an opinion that has probably been ill-served i